Category Archives: Healing

Changes that can Save Your Life in 2014

From 1946 to 1964, more than 76 million babies were born in the U.S., part of the generation known as the “Baby Boomers.”  This is my generation, and I have a heart for them.  Many things came out of the era of the 60’s and 70’s… most of them not good, and many of them detrimental to our health.

With the New Year dawning, January is the time of year that a lot of people make decisions to pursue a healthier lifestyle.  If you know anything about Jim and me, we are all about healthy living and healthy choices, especially in nutrition.  But, we weren’t always this way, and we can truthfully say that now we have great compassion for others who are dealing with the effects of bad choices they made along life’s path.

We hope to inspire others to get started on this healthy course that we’re on now.  It’s a perfect time for you to make a change!  In fact, with all of the fabulous nutritional breakthroughs we have been given through Food for Health and others, getting healthy in 2014 is very achievable!  The greatest challenge is just getting started! Continue reading →

Marriage (Pt. 1)

In my book, “More Than I Could Ever Ask”, I tell all the details about my first husband whom I chose for all the wrong reasons, none of which had anything to do with God.  When I met him, I was very young and naive and my ability to make good decisions was not yet mature.  Add to that the influence of drugs and you have a recipe for disaster and that is what happened.  The choices I made as a young woman led to 10 years of hell and heartache.

Remember the old Frank Sinatra song “I Did It My Way”?  It sounded really great to the generation that was being raised to indulge in the world and all of its pleasure.  We heard things like “go for the gusto” and “you only live once” and we bought it.  We bought the lie that we had a right to sinful lusts and worldly living that the Bible says brings pleasure for a season, but eventually brings death.  We bought the world’s philosophy of “self fulfillment”. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 6)

Because I’d never had an ultrasound, I didn’t know the gender of any of the children I aborted, so don’t ask me how I knew this; I can’t tell you. But somehow I knew in my heart that the voice I had just heard belonged to my son. He would have been my firstborn.

Now, on the beach, I understood why God had wanted me to hear the radio broadcast of “Tilly,” and why he had spoken to me in the voice of my unborn child for the second time. He had already forgiven me, but he wanted to begin a healing process in me.

I remember hearing a preacher say once that God does things in the heavenly realm that there are no earthly words to describe. I believe that with God, all things are possible. Whatever it takes for you to be healed, that’s what he will do for you. That’s what it took for me. I needed to hear that voice. Needed that reassurance. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 5)

I had rented a beautiful little cabin in the mountains and really enjoyed the solitude it afforded. One night I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and turned on the television. I flipped through the channels until I found a Christian program. It was The 700 Club. Pat Robertson was talking about abortion. The topic made me a little uneasy, but I didn’t change the station.

That night The 700 Club aired a video called The Silent Scream. This pro-life documentary was narrated by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, and included live film footage of a suction abortion. For the first time I saw pictures of exactly what I had done. I was horrified, but I could not tear my eyes away from the screen. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 4)

Sunglasses could not hide the tears streaming down my face, and I was glad the beach was not crowded that day. I walked toward the water, oblivious to the warm ocean breeze or the strident call of the seagulls. My shoulders slumped under the weight of the reality that now settled on me. Dear God, what have I done? My feet were leaden, my legs would no longer hold me. I sank to my knees in the hot sand, completely devastated. I murdered my children!

A man and a woman passed by me and discarded the remains of their picnic lunch into one of the large trash bins dotting the beach. It occurred to me that I had thrown my children away, almost as unthinkingly as they tossed their soda cans in the garbage. I had killed my babies to keep my husband. A husband I wound up losing anyway. A husband who had betrayed me and abused me, again and again. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 3)

Babies? I had steeled myself not to think of them that way. Planned Parenthood had said they were blobs of tissue. I knew better, of course—at least on some level. But that’s the only way I could live with myself, to think of them as “problem pregnancies,” the flotsam and jetsam of an untimely conception, not as babies.

Heaven? Until that moment, I had vaguely thought of them as formless blobs out there in the universe somewhere. Were they really babies, really in heaven, as Melissa had just said? Continue reading →

What Easter Means to Me

On Easter Sunday, 1989, I wandered into a wonderful church and heard the pastor tell me that I could be forgiven and saved by grace; I didn’t have to do it myself. That day my scarlet sins became white as snow. And for the next ten years, I went through God’s training program, conducted by the people of the church. Little did I know that God was preparing me to speak to millions of women and that I would be an instrument to help heal their scars from abortion, drugs, and sinful living. Nor did I know that He was also preparing me to be the wife of Jim Bakker. But I’m beginning to learn that broken and wounded people make the best healers. Continue reading →

Joy Came in the Morning (pt 3)

Early August 1998

We had a beautiful suite with a separate bedroom and a kitchenette off the full-size living room. From the moment we walked in, I felt the presence of God, and I began to realize that something truly supernatural was in store for me that night.

Because I knew it would be an emotional time, I went to the bathroom, took my contacts out, and washed my face. While I was putting my pajamas on, Chris and Jolene prepared the living room. They placed boxes of tissues in various spots around the room, and they decorated one of the tables with a white linen tablecloth with lace trim. Continue reading →

Joy Came in the Morning (pt 1)

“Jamie Charles Bakker was born December 18, 1975.” Jim was pretending to narrate a biography of his son.

The four of us— Jim and I, Jay and Amanda—were traveling from L.A. to Muskegon, Michigan, for the Bakker family reunion, and Jim was using the occasion to fill me in on some of the family history. Jim continued his story, but my mind stopped and focused on that date. December 18, 1975.

“Lori, you sure got quiet,” Jay said after a few minutes. “Are you carsick? Or just mesmerized by our life stories?” The others laughed.

“No, I…Sorry, Jay, I just had a major reality check when I heard your date of birth.” I swallowed hard. “You’re the same age my firstborn son would have been.” That realization had hit me like a ton of bricks. If I had carried my first pregnancy to term, the baby would have been born in late December ’75 or early January ’76.” I was looking at a flesh-and-blood son—soon to be my son, or at least my stepson—with his arm around his girlfriend, and he was the same age my firstborn would have been. “You guys could have been really good friends,” I said wistfully.

The moment passed awkwardly, Jay didn’t know what to say, and Jim simply looked sad. He reached over and took my hand. As much healing as I have had, the old, familiar grief can still reach out and squeeze my heart in a split second. IT doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is very real. Every time I looked at Jay for the next few hours, I thought of the son I never had because of my own choices. Gradually those thoughts faded.

Such thoughts, while painful, no longer overwhelmed me because of a deep inner healing I had experienced in 1994. That event remains the single most precious moment of truth in my life.

…..more to come.

Joy Came in the Morning – Part 2
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 3
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 4

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 7)

Because I’d never had an ultrasound, I didn’t know the gender of any of the children I aborted, so don’t ask me how I knew this; I can’t tell you. But somehow I knew in my heart that the voice I had just heard belonged to my son. He would have been my firstborn.

Now, on the beach, I understood why God had wanted me to hear the radio broadcast of “Tilly,” and why he had spoken to me in the voice of my unborn child for the second time. He had already forgiven me, but he wanted to begin a healing process in me. I remember hearing a preacher say once that God does things in the heavenly realm that there are no earthly words to describe. I believe that with God, all things are possible. Whatever it takes for you to be healed, that’s what he will do for you. That’s what it took for me. I needed to hear that voice. Needed that reassurance.

God knew I could never have taken all the guilt and grief at once. So he restored me bit by bit, patched my broken spirit piece by piece. I did not get up from that experience energized and with a burning zeal to speak to women about abortion. In fact, over time, I almost forgot what God had shown me that day. Yet, I always remembered hearing that voice, and I remembered it as a healing time, a moment when God, in his infinite grace and mercy, put a Band-Aid on my bleeding soul.

After my hour alone on the beach, I was able to pull myself together. I got up, brushed myself off, and walked back to where Bobbi and the kids were soaking up the sun. I had lost the exuberance with which we had started the trip, but I was functional again.

Yet, it would be another five years before I would fully grieve for the loss of my children. And that would be the third and final time I heard my son’s voice….

…I heard Adam’s voice for a final time. “We’re waiting here for you, Mommy, and one day you’ll be here too, and we’ll spend forever together.” The voice was very comforting, and I knew I wasn’t crazy. The inaudible voice was really God speaking to my spirit; I heard it as a child’s voice—my son’s voice—because that was what I needed for my healing. God had prepared me for this moment by letting me hear that voice years earlier.